Behind the Plate with Heather Soman, RD

The Truth About Halloween Candy (and Why Restricting Backfires)

• Heather Soman, RD • Episode 6

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Halloween candy isn’t the villain; fear is. We take a fresh, evidence-based look at sweets through an intuitive eating lens and show how trust—not tight control—leads to calmer kids, steadier routines, and fewer binges for everyone at home. Drawing on research and real client stories, we unpack scarcity mindset, explain why strict sugar rules often backfire, and outline how habituation helps candy lose its charge over time.

We break down Ellen Satter’s Division of Responsibility so parents have a simple, reliable framework: you handle the what, when, and environment; your kids handle whether and how much. From letting children explore their haul and pick favorites to folding a fun-size bar into after‑school snacks and dinners, you’ll hear practical, low‑drama ways to reduce novelty and keep food neutral. We also talk about language that sticks—why swapping “Have you had enough?” for “Which one did you like most?” can shift the whole evening.

Adults get tools too. If you grew up with dessert rules or a clean‑plate culture, Halloween can trigger old scarcity patterns. We share steps to practice unconditional permission to eat, keep meals regular with carbs, protein, and fat, and experiment with keeping candy visible as urges fade. The result is less white‑knuckle control and more body trust, plus a clearer path to stable eating patterns, better emotional well‑being, and a more peaceful home during the sweetest week of the year.

If this conversation helped, tap follow, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find us. What’s the one candy you’ll put on the plate this week?


Ellyn Satter: https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/

References

Say A, de la Piedad Garcia X, Mallan KM. The correlation between different operationalisations of parental restrictive feeding practices and children's eating behaviours: Systematic review and meta-analyses. Appetite. 2023 Jan 1;180:106320. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2022.106320. Epub 2022 Oct 7. PMID: 36210017.


Hübner, H. L., & Bartelmeß, T. (2024). Associations of sugar-related food parenting practices and parental feeding styles with prospective dietary behavior of children and adolescents: A systematic review of the literature from 2017 to 2023. Frontiers in Public Health, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1382437


Costa A, Oliveira A. Parental Feeding Practices and Children's Eating Behaviours: An Overview of Their Complex Relationship. Healthcare (Basel). 2023 Jan 31;11(3):400. doi: 10.3390/healthcare11030400. PMID: 36766975; PMCID: PMC9914567.


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SPEAKER_00:

Hey everyone, welcome back to Behind the Plate. I'm Heather Soman and today we're diving into a topic that comes up every single October, which is Halloween candy. Whether you're a parent staring down at buckets of mini chocolate bars or someone who just feels a little uneasy about having this many sweets in your home, this episode is for you. I'll be talking about how we can bring an intuitive eating lens to Halloween, what it means to trust ourselves and our kids around candy, why restriction often backfires, and what the research says about letting go of food rules without losing control. And of course, I'll share some stories from my own clients and my own kitchen about what happens when you finally make peace with the foods you've been taught to fear. So let's get into it. Alright, so let's start with the classic worry I hear every year, which is I don't want my kids eating too much candy, or if you're an adult, if I buy the Halloween candy too early, I'll eat it all before Halloween comes. I mean, we live in a world where sugar's been villainized, so you can't scroll through social media without hearing that it's addictive or toxic. And sure, we know that eating a variety of foods and not overdoing it on sweets can support health. Absolutely. But when we start to treat candy like poison, we create fear. And fear doesn't lead to better choices, it leads to guilt, shame, and often eating in secret or feeling like we're out of control. That's what we call the scarcity mindset. When food feels scarce, we want it more. Just like toilet paper in 2020. I don't know if you guys remember, but when the pandemic first started, everybody started buying up all the toilet paper, shelves became really empty, and that's because people were worried that they weren't going to have access to the resources that they're used to. And this same thing is what happens when we decide to restrict or eliminate certain food items. We create this thing called the scarcity mindset. Now, when we over-restrict kids or ourselves, it actually fuels the very behavior we're trying to avoid, which is overconsumption. And I totally get it why parents worry about sugar, especially around Halloween. Again, we hear so many messages about how too much sugar is bad, and it's easy to feel like we need to tightly control how much our kids get. But here's what the research actually tells us. When we try to strictly limit or control access to sweet, it usually backfires. Kids end up thinking about these foods even more and are more likely to eat past fullness when they finally get the chance. So that whole idea of if I don't let them have it, they won't want it doesn't actually hold up. Studies have shown the opposite. The more relaxed and neutral we can be, the more likely our kids are to develop a healthy, balanced relationship with all kinds of foods, candy included. I often get asked, okay, so what can we do instead? And this is where I often bring up the work of Ellen Satter and her division of responsibility. It's so powerful, and if you haven't heard of it, I would definitely recommend checking out her website. There are tons of resources there all about child parent feeding relationships. But essentially what she says is that parents are responsible for what's offered, when it's offered, and creating a pleasant mealtime environment. And kids are responsible for whether they eat and how much they eat. And that's it. When we stay in our lane and allow kids to listen to their own hunger and fullness cues, we're teaching body trust. And that builds trust over time with themselves, their bodies, and those who offer them food. For Halloween, this might mean letting your kids explore their candy haul, having some that night, and then integrating candy into a snack or dessert times in the days that follow. The novelty wears off faster than you think. Some of my clients who have actually tried this tell me that they were shocked that their kids actually lost interest after a few days. But when candy is controlled, locked away, or earned back as a reward, the obsession with candy, the craze around it, that your kids thinking about food, it stays strong. Another piece of advice that I have learned from other dietitians is that serving candy even in the days and weeks before Halloween can be helpful as well to try to decrease some of that novelty and excitement. So what that might look like is in their lunch bag, for example, the week leading up to Halloween, you might include a small Kit Kat bar or whatever it might be that your kid really likes. Alright, let's talk about the grown-ups, the adults in the room. Because honestly, this isn't just about the kids. Many of us were raised in homes where sugar was limited, dessert was earned, or bad foods were kept out of the house. So now when candy shows up, it can still trigger some of those same scarcity feelings. You might often hear yourself saying things like, if I keep that in my house, I'll eat it all. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that from people. And that's not a lack of willpower, that's conditioning. And when we finally allow ourselves to have the food that we've been restricting, our brain says, quick, eat it all before it's gone. I remember myself personally, in my house, our rule with Halloween candy was after it was Halloween, we were only allowed to have two candies a day. And the candies were um small, of course, so having two of them a day felt almost limiting. I mean, it was exciting to be able to choose my own candy from my my candy bowl that I had, but I remember feeling like, oh, wish I could just have three or four. And what that resulted in was I would sneak those candies later on. I would find a time where I was alone or nobody was looking and I would take more. And I think it really led to me wanting more candy than anything, because I think there was still always that restriction. And this is exactly why part of intuitive eating involves this process called habituation, which is the process of keeping these quote-unquote forbidden foods around until they lose their charge, their allure, if you will. Over time, candy just becomes candy. One of my clients actually told me recently, I can finally keep chocolate at home. And now sometimes I even forget that it's there. And this isn't control through restriction, that's control through learning to trust yourself and this process of habituation. If you haven't heard about habituation before, essentially what it is, it's almost a desensitization to really exciting new things. So the example I often give is let's say you get a new phone, a new car, a new outfit, whatever it might be, but let's use the phone as an example. You get a new phone and you're really excited to have this phone, right? After about, I don't know, I would say a month or two, that excitement begins to dwindle. And after a year, it's it's just your phone. It doesn't have that same excitement as when you first got it. And that's exactly what happens when we start to introduce some of these really exciting foods that we've previously forbidden ourselves to have in more often. If you were to, let's say, give yourself permission to eat, I don't know, let's say pizza every single day, do you think by the end of one month you would still want to have pizza every day? Probably not. It probably wouldn't feel quite as exciting. Now, this example doesn't have to be quite as extreme, but you probably get the point by now of what I'm talking about as it relates to the Halloween candy. And recent research supports this too. Studies on intuitive eating show that when people practice unconditional permission to eat, which really just means that they stop labeling foods as good or bad and they give themselves the permission to have all foods, they experience fewer binge eating episodes, more stable eating patterns, and better emotional well-being. So when you let yourself or your kids have candy without shame, you're not giving up. You're actually creating long-term stability, both emotionally and behaviorally. And yes, sugar gives us energy, and yes, it's also okay for kids to enjoy it. So we've said a lot here, I've said a lot here, and I want to share some things, some practical tips, and just to kind of summarize a lot of what we've talked about so far. So, one, for parents, let kids have fun with their candy and normalize that fun. An example of what you could be doing is let's say on the night of what you could do instead of asking them if they're full or suggesting that they've had too much, maybe ask them which one was your favorite, instead of saying, Have you had enough? Get curious with them, get excited with them. I know for me, remembering back as a kid, something my brother and I used to do all the time when we came home with all of our Halloween candy was we would group everything. So we would put all the smarties in one pile, all the chips in another pile, and all the rockets in another pile, whatever it might be. I don't know why we did that, because really we just ended up throwing them all back in the same bucket. But we really liked sorting them and going through them. And of course, our parents looked through them as well to make sure everything was safe and they were okay with what we were getting. Um, but that was one of the things that I remember and just what a fond memory to have, you know, something that you're doing with your sibling and it just makes it all really fun. And it's not even about like eating all of it, it's really just about sorting and seeing what you have and that excitement. And when parents can get involved in that conversation and in that moment, it can actually create a really great and safe environment for kids to explore those types of foods. So what I'm kind of getting at here is trying to keep negative food out of the conversation because it really does stick. Now, for those of you who don't know my work too in depth, I do work in an eating disorder program part-time. And a lot of what I hear from some of the teens that I work with is that some of the comments that they received from parents or other adults in their life, such as teachers or aunts and uncles, whoever it might be, that they heard early in their life, as of as early as I've heard is age six, that this food is bad or don't eat too much, it stuck with them. And I'm not saying just because you comment on somebody's food that they're gonna develop an eating disorder, but there is a risk you don't know how something is going to stick with somebody when there is some type of negative comment. So always trying to keep it neutral. Offer candy with meals and snacks instead of making it a separate thing or a reward or a dessert really helps with reducing that excitement. It really helps with this normalizing practice, and it also helps kids get more nutrients in in their day. So let's say, for example, we're thinking about an after school snack. What you could consider doing is having maybe it's a piece of fruit, maybe it's some trail mix and a piece of Halloween candy. And then we can also have a piece of Halloween candy with dinner, and we can also have it in our lunch bag and so on and so forth. So just thinking about how can we create it as part of a meal and snack instead of making it its own separate thing. Because for one, in the afterschool snack example, kids are coming home often hungry. They want to have something to eat. So let's choose some items that are actually going to fulfill that hunger, such as the fruit, the trail mix, whatever it might be. And then we also have an item in there that's just really fun. Because if they come home hungry and they are just to have any as many Halloween candies as they want, they're probably gonna eat a lot of them. And that's okay, but they're probably not going to get the satiety that they needed out of some food that offers some nutrients. So what I'm saying here is let's use the nutrition by addition model when we're serving um Halloween candy with kids. Now, for adults, notice how this scarcity mindset shows up for you. That whole I can't keep this in the house thing that we say over and over again. Just notice it. Just start off by saying what happened, like seeing what happens when you do go about buying the Halloween candy, if you do offer Halloween candy. Try keeping candy or sweets visible for a while and just notice how that pull kind of changes over time. What happens with your mind? Are you constantly walking by it and wanting a piece? And what happens if you keep it out for a week? What happens if you keep it out for two and and beyond? Does it start to lose do you start to lose interest in it? Giving yourself unperv unconditional permission to enjoy candy, no strings attached. Now, you don't need permission from a dietitian like myself, but I often tell people it is okay to enjoy a piece of food just because it's something that you like. It doesn't have to be the most nutrient-dense thing in the world. What might be helpful though is if you're finding yourself feeling out of control with candy and it's something that you're eating a lot, ask yourself a couple things. One, are you hungry? Did you have enough to eat today? If that's the case, let's try to get some balanced meals and snacks in, things that have carbs, fat, and protein. Let's make sure we're nourishing our bodies. And then we can also choose the candy at the same time. Obviously, the candy isn't gonna provide us too much by the way of satiety in terms of keeping us full and energized for a long period of time. So let's accept it for what it is. It's something that's really fun and tasty and we enjoy eating, but it's probably not gonna serve your body in the way you need it to. And that's okay. If the guilt comes up, just remind yourself, one night or week or day of eating candy or even a month doesn't undo anything. It's not going to impact your long-term health. What is more detrimental is going through these binge and restrict cycles where we are having, let's say, 20 to 50 pieces of Halloween candy and feeling so guilty about it that we refuse to eat the next day. That is so much more harmful for our health and our body and our minds than it is to include that many candies over a period of time in a month, let's say. And that makes sense because our body, our body and our metabolism kind of work in this long-term way and not just in a let's eat it all just to get rid of it kind of mindset. Now I am recording this the week of Halloween, and I want to just give a few tips in the days leading up to Halloween just to help with reducing some of those uneasy feelings that you might have with knowing that there is Halloween candy in your house or is going to be Halloween candy in your house. One, making sure that you are having all your meals and snacks. The day of Halloween, the day before, the day after, if we start skipping meals, if we start skipping snacks, we are setting ourselves up for a period of time where we may binge and or just have a lot of the Halloween candy. This is not a whole like energy balance thing we're trying to do. What helps most is if you can eat normally with your three meals, two to three snacks a day, kind of thing, with lots of fiber and protein and all that good stuff, that's going to help with reducing incidences of binging. And this applies to both adults and kids. So before kids go out for trick-or-treating, offering a meal that has maybe it's some fun in it and some nutrients. For example, it might be having pizza. I know I always had pizza before going out trick-or-treating. I don't know why. Maybe it just made things easier in the house, but having pizza or pasta or something that has some type of a protein in it, with let's say a salad or some veggie sticks on the side with dip, whatever it might be, is so much of a better option than us going with something really small with the anticipation of having candy later, because most likely you're going to be hungry and then just be eating out of hunger. I hope this makes sense and I hope that this helps. Really, what I'm trying to get at here is instead of trying to control, what if we focused on connection instead and learning how to trust ourselves and just kind of letting the Halloween candy be what it is? It's okay that there are some foods that are more exciting than others. That's alright. If you're wondering about this as an adult or a parent, just think about the nostalgia that came with Halloween and what are some of your memories? What did you used to do when you would bring home Halloween candy? What was that like for you? The candy doesn't have to be the villain here. When we take away the fear and shame, it just becomes another food, one that can we that we can fit into a balanced and joyful way of eating. Thanks for tuning into Behind the Plate. If this episode resonated with you, I would love for you to share it with a friend or leave a review to help others find the show. And if you're ready to build more trust with food, check out the links in the show notes for resources on intuitive eating, body trust, and hunger and fullness cues. Until next time, take care and have a happy, candy filled Halloween.